Your ideas are hugely valuable.

--S.B., Orinda, CA, novelist

“The endeavor of writing can be long and lonely. Mary Carroll Moore, master writing instructor, to the rescue! Moore packs How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book with years of gritty good sense and big-picture perspective. Her techniques for drafting, organizing, and polishing a book are practical and time-tested. Here is a first-time book-writer’s best companion.”

--Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew,author of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir

If I could implement all I've learned from you, I'd have a best-seller!

Pretend you’re a reporter for the New York Times. You’re going to interview your book idea.

List some questions you’d love to ask your book about its form, content, goals. You can start with something nonthreatening, as you would if you were a real reporter.

Ask your book some very good questions. Some ideas from my class are below, or you can make up your own:

What do you want to tell me about yourself?What form suits you best?Who is your readership and how will theyaccess you?What are you most eager to say?What are you most afraid to say?What genre are you?

When it runs out of things to say (or you getnervous about the answers) ask a different question.

The goal of this book-writing exercise is to surprise yourself. You’ll tap the hidden parts of yourself as a writer, the parts we often censor. You can strike gold--if you maintain the attitude of no-assumptions and anything can happen.

Books for the Blocked--These'll Get You Moving Again!

Escaping into the Open by Elizabeth Berg

Listen to Me by Lynn Lauber

Marry Your Muse by Jan Phillips

Pencil Dancing by Mari Messer

The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo

Thinking about Memoir by Abigail Thomas

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

A person’s life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art, or love, or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.Albert Camus

Saturday, June 11, 2011

When you’re writing a book, you have to simultaneously hover over the forest, while you're noticing the tiny leaves of each tree. Being in two places at once, you must keep in mind your overall book’s focus and structure, how you want it to come together--at the same time as you work on a tiny detail of one scene or chapter.

It’s often hard to balance these two viewpoints well. Most new book writers can’t.

When I began writing and publishing books, I was able to easily see the chapter I was working on, down to the fine-tuning of one step of one theory or the tiny gesture a character makes in one particular scene. It was much harder for me to move to the long view: see how this particular particle of writing fit in the book as a whole. Where would it best be placed to engage a reader? Back then, my balancing handicap didn't matter. I was lucky enough to begin publishing back in the days when there were editors at the publishing houses who assumed this job. They helped a writer monitor the long view by keeping in mind the reader, the reader's experience of the book as a whole, and how all the parts made up that whole.

As the writer, I was the "talent" (they actually used to call it that!). I was responsible for creating good writing in each section of each book. My editor, in his lofty treehouse, would take care of the bigger picture.

Things have changed radically in publishing. Not only has this kind of editor mostly disappeared from the major houses, books need to be in good shape before they are submitted anywhere--to agent, to small press, to contest, to publisher. So we writers are faced with a task we didn't have to learn back then: we must be masters at what CD Baby creator Derek Sivers called "future-focus" and "present-focus."

We must balance the long view and the short view in our manuscripts.

Useful Writing Tools for Long View/Short View Balancing
My favorite tool for refining the skill of long view, or future-focus, is the storyboard.

My favorite tool for developing present-focus is the brainstorming list of topics, which generate ideas for freewrites or "islands" if you maintain a solid writing habit.

Storyboards are not foreign to those in publishing. They are used by many publishers to design sequence in a book that will be created in house. I learned about storyboards two decades ago and use them in my workshops, classes, and all the books I write. I've never grown to love them, as some do, but I depend on their power to pull me into future focus, that long view of my manuscript. They let me see the forest above the trees.

My storyboards are vital maps of each book I write. Without a working map, a writer is severely limited. She is stuck in present focus, the short view. This is truly a fun place to reside, but it also can capture you unconsciously in an endless loop. You produce many small bits but they never become a whole, a real book.

Some writers love playing with dramatic scenes or “islands,” but balk at systems. This kind of writer is stuck in the short view. They aren't able to gain the overview of how these “islands” line up into chapters,and eventually the entire mess gets overwhelming. Either the book will be abandoned, the writer will decide they are more cut out for easier-to-manage short stories or essays, or the writer will finally force herself into a long view--learn to map her manuscript.

What about the opposite tendency? This exists too. A writer can equally get stuck in future-focus. Do you love, love, love storyboarding, make countless outlines and charts, line up ideas on index cards, but don't do much actual writing?

When I talk with writers who adore storyboarding and admit that the actual writing time feels, well, messy, my inner alarm bells go off. This writer has been hovering far above the trees way too long. Yes, writing process is certainly not as tidy and controlled as the beautiful diagrams that line the walls of your writing room, but writing is organic. And it's important to allow equal space for the organic as well as the planned when you're writing a book.

So be wary of getting so hooked into the big picture of what your book could become, that you aren’t willing to do the work that will let it grow into that picture.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise
This week's exercise allows you to explore the two views, and see what you might need to balance in yourself.

1. Read the article on future-focus and present-focus by Derek Sivers, which is here. See if it changes your point of view about where you come from, with your book.

2. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write about your like or dislike of these two aspects of book-writing: the big picture (i.e., organizing your writing into a storyboard, outline, or other future-focused system) and the short view (i,e., writing "islands" or freewrites, creating your book loosely).

3. What did you learn? This week, ask yourself how you could begin to adjust any imbalance.

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Upcoming Writing Classes with Mary

Whether you are trying to write the story of your life for publication or as a family legacy, this class by the author of two memoirs will show you how to organize your stories into readable, interesting work. You'll be introduced to a simple formula that successful authors use to find the central conflict of their story, then plan, organize, and write scenes and chapters around it. We'll explore the value of themes, how action and reflection balance one another in memoir and creative nonfiction, and authorial voice versus narrative voice. $105. Click here for details or to register.Writing RetreatsYour Book Starts Here: Week-long Writing Retreat July 30-August 3, Madeline Island School of the Arts, Lake Superior Five days of workshop, personal coaching, and plenty of time to work on your book in our great community of book writers at all stages, working in all genres, on gorgeous Madeline Island off the coast of northern Wisconsin. This retreat will become a highlight of your summer. Great meals and lodging on campus. $775. Click here for details.

Independent Study for Book Writers July 30-August 3, Madeline Island School of the Arts, Lake Superior Craving time, quiet, and a wonderful space to finally get working (or finishing) your book? But enough support each day, plus community, to do it sanely and safely? Five days of personal coaching, plenty of time to write, and optional workshops to attend make this independent study week productive, creative bliss. Great meals and lodging on campus. $775. Click here for details.

A Little about Me . . .

Mary Carroll Moore is an award-winning, internationally published author of thirteen books in three genres, writing teacher, editor and book doctor for publishing houses. For thirty years she's helped thousands of new and experienced writers plan, write, and develop--and publish!--their books. Photo by Bruce Fuller Photography.

Free Weekly Writing Exercise

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If you believe you have a book inside you just waiting to come out, here is a guide that will ensure your book’s arrival in the world. In clear, accessible prose, Mary Carroll Moore leads the aspiring author through every step of the challenging, rewarding process of developing and completing a full-length book.

--Rebecca McClanahan, author of Word Painting

Encouraging Words--Well-Known Writers with Large Number of Rejections--But Published!

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo--397 rejections (and it became a movie)A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L'Engle--97 rejections (and it won the Newbery Medal for best children's book of 1963; it's now in its 69th printing)Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson--40 rejections (and it has won multiple awards and sold 150,000 hard copies). Judy Blume says she received "nothing but rejections" for 2 years.Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot--17 rejectionsHarry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling--rejected by 9 publishersThe Diary of Anne Frank--16 rejections (and now more than 30 million copies are in print)Dr. Seuss books--more than 15 rejectionsJonathan Livingston Seagullby Richard Bach--140 rejectionsGone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell--38 rejectionsWatership Down by Richard Adams--26 rejectionsDune by Frank Herbert--nearly 20 rejections

To all book writers: Believe in your story. Keep trying. The right home for your book is out there, waiting for you to discover it.

Want to get the creative brain going?

Book writers (and any writers) need to know how to engage the creative right brain that "writes" in images. Think of any wonderful book that's left you swimming in a setting or characters--the writer has successfully used the image-creating part of the brain. But our normal workaday lives short-circuit this part. Check out this cool video of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist at Harvard Medical School, recounting her personal experience of a left-brain stroke and her awakening to right-brain reality. Pretty amazing fusion of brain science with what it feels like to a brain scientist having a stroke:http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Flying Squirrels Bring Creative Jolt to Novelist

Flying squirrel gets into house--disrupts routine, gets novelist thinking differently. This happened to me! For two days, as I chased the squirrel (actually, it was all night since they are nocturnal), I slept very little. And got many new ideas for my novel-in-progress.Go figure!Maybe...book writers need creative jolts? Routine dulls our imaginations? How has an unexpected interruption actually been a gift for your creativity this week?

At the Loft Literary Center, I can always tell which students in my classes have taken Mary Carroll Moore’s class on book-writing. They talk about writing their book in "islands" and using storyboards to figure out how those sections relate to each other. When another student confesses to feeling overwhelmed by the material her memoir might include, they readily advise, “You should try Mary Carroll Moore’s method.” I second that.--Cheri Register, author of Packinghouse Daughter and American Book Award winner

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